54 photos of our End of the World and Goldfield Days, taken by Teresa Roberts. So, kick your shoes off and take a listen to tonight’s Audio Sorgfield episode #13 while enjoying.
I’ll paint a practical picture of what the End of the World Party was like.
As I’ve already been talking about in other blog posts, I was disappointed with the outcome. Not many people showed up; like 20 or so, to camp.
It rained and our bands were very disappointed, in fact, upset that they never got to play. A duo came to play that hailed all the way from San Francisco. We did get to burn our bus and I’ll tell you about that in a minute. A nudist with no belly button was here. A couple girls that we’d never met before came down from Reno. Their arrival, with others, was at about 2am. I walked all the way out to the bus with no shirt on to greet them. That must have seemed odd.
A very good friend who’s bound to a wheelchair showed up with another friend and his girlfriend; they were a lot of fun to hang out with and Zak and I were very happy to be able to accommodate. An archaeologist came from Idaho to stay for a night in her tent.
It was all so weird and almost dreamlike. Friends camped in the yard or in their cars in the driveway. Ms. Button took a bunch of pictures for us and we did sell a handful of T-shirts. A film maker friend stayed the weekend as well to document our party. A couple ghost hunter friends came down from Reno to visit as well.
Conversation hinged on UFO’s, mining, and the over-zealous local sheriff’s department who kept a close eye on us. The musicians sat in our covered patio and drank vodka, ate cheeseburgers from our grill and talked music.
At one point, a brand new white corvette came rolling out from our CarForest’s dusty roads. I went out to greet the driver who happened to be a guy who I’d heard of but never met before and involved with our local radio station. He flew out from Minnesota to be here and I enjoyed talking with him for a little bit. It was a rental car; we had figured that. A handful of friends showed up or rolled through. A gay couple from a neighboring ghost town swung by and I’m glad to have made their acquaintance. Goldfield will never be the same.
The town’s yearly festival, Goldfield Days, was going on this same weekend and I’m proud to say a lot of locals came out to see the CarForest. It was such moody weather that on the one hand, I was proud to show off Goldfield’s meteorological drama, but then again, the rain really put a damper on our party. The amps never came out of our big black Suburban which died on us on Saturday. Our school bus stage was never used.
I rented 3 port-a-potties for the weekend and one was used only once by a small child that showed up on Sunday with families of 4 wheeler fanatics from Southern California. It got me thinking, I believe we should buy one bathroom facility to have here permanently in the future.
I’m proud to say that articles were written in 2(!!) Vegas periodicals, Nevada Magazine’s website, local area newspapers, Reno News & Review and also multiple blogs online. We even have a production company from New York City that wants to make it out to see a bus burning and air it on a cable network! I’d have to say I’ve done my part for Goldfield, Nevada.
We got a ton of publicity all over the state and beyond. PR could not have been done any better, thank you very much. Of that, I’m very proud. That’s why it’s puzzling that the results were so lackluster. It’s a long way to Goldfield, I guess. Goldfield is famous now though.
The weirdest part was the days after the party. People are still showing up. We’ve opened up a floodgate of visitors! Just today, visitors from Massachusetts drove 4 hours, one way, out of their way to come down to Goldfield to see the Car Forest.
Around noon, I was sitting at the General Store and this great panoramic photographer that I know pulled up and said “Chad! We came to see the CarForest!” Vincent Cascio is his name and I can’t wait to share the digital vistas that he takes. (By the way, he’s looking for a Reno gallery to show in, hint hint..)
He said, he wanted to share the photos he takes in town with Goldfield’s Chamber of Commerce. “Oh great, Vince, we’d love them. I’m the President, actually.” It was a small town moment.
Torrential downpours came and having seen the End of the World signs still at the road, a mystical wanderer showed up at our doorstep. She just got out of the Goldfield jail and she had alien prophecies to share with us. She’s a shamanic healer, of sorts, and the most independent loner I’ve met in a long time.
The archaeologist talks of future wishes to base herself in Goldfield, by the way. We’d like that. She’s artsy and smart and cute. She enjoyed the rusted debris in our back yard and I can’t wait to hear what she says about the volcanic rock surrounding our home.
We had wanted to fill Goldfield Days with the campsters from our End of the World Party. We wanted to be heroes to the town. I have to realize, success is sometimes more obscured than we’d like. We did a very good thing. These writings help me digest it all.
In this melancholic, mystical, post-apocalyptic mood, I finished a parable I’d been working on for 6 months about a snake that rules the world through greed. It ends on a positive note. I recorded it last night for Episode 13 of my Audio Sorgfield. Every episode is unique and this one has a hero theme.
6 months of planning, promotion, and physical labor went in to the making of this party. I had vowed to stay in bed for 2 days after it was all over. Basically this whole week I’ve done that, save the couple times I took long walks up the surrounding hills to discover new terrain and old ruins. At night I’ve been able to enjoy the stars with a clear mind. I’m not even thinking about the next party yet.
Multiple times a day now we see people cruising up to look at the cars. The greatest accomplishment gained from throwing this party is that, now, a floodgate of visitors has opened up. I think it’s time to paint a big sign with a donation box and words saying “Buy a Car Forest T-Shirt downtown at the Goldfield Giftshop!”
Wanna’ email me? bigfishbowler@gmail.com
Related articles
- Goldfield Days Is This (fishbowler.wordpress.com)
- Bus on Fire (fishbowler.wordpress.com)
- Radio Goldfield, Pirates No More! (fishbowler.wordpress.com)
- Throughout rural Nevada, there are little oases of art worth visiting (fishbowler.wordpress.com)
Art of Sorg 
Maybe your emphasis was on the wrong thing…”Hero of Goldfield”? Doesn’t that speak to self-dramatizing instead of highlighting the little town or even the project? Ever consider the whole car forest was ill-conceived?
Elizabeth, self-dramatization is/are my middle name(s)! This is my blog; these are my thoughts as they come to me.
Car Forest ill-conceived? I’ll just say this: I know how to gain notoriety and never will our Car Forest be mentioned without, also, the name of our town being mentioned. It’s working. As always, patience is a virtue.
I think you miss my point: Maybe you could take your magnificence to another country and help them with your brilliant ideas…
I hear Elizabeth. I nominate second. You are way too ambitious for the state of Nevada. Just forget everyone and everything in it. Leave it all behind.Go to some glorious place. Grand. Well known. With lots of flow, hundreds of thousands of people. A continual flow of observers. Cameras on you. Big names. Connections. People to work with you not against. Forget everything ill conceived in the state of Nevada and leave it behind forever. One key move is knowing when to abort. Abort. Mission aborted. Terminated.
Self aggrandizing, Elizabeth. Look how other stuff he did turned out. He isn’t that way. He will be that way if he continues magnifying in an ill conceived sinking ship. You’re right about him being too good for this project though. The entire state. He’s grown beyond it. It has nothing to offer him. Little people snitching, scared in shackles, afraid of change. Losers all around bringing him down. Foolfield Illuminati.
The truth Elizabeth, is Chad Sorg got drunk and took the intertainment over to his house for a private party leaving the people who came to the burning standing in the dark with nothing! Nothing got rained out! Sorg is just flat out lying about the whole thing. He is calling the people in Goldfield liars when they tell the truth of his fuck up, and it was majour! Hero of Goldfield?!! Asshole of Goldfield is closer to the truth! There are no secrets in a small town and Chad is finding out that a lying cheap ass hustler is soon put back on the highway to nowhere. After all that is where I found him. Drunk in the gutters of Reno! But I gave him a shot at being human and living a good life.
My payment for this, (as Expected) was a hustler who couldn’t make himself work at anything more than running his mouth. Zack was a friend of his so he thought to bring him down here to do his work while he fucked off, pretending to be an artist. Hell my wife paints better than him. Every job I offered him in the line of painting he could not do! He can’t pay his rent and wants me to feed him. He can’t take care of himself. He hustled his friend Zack into a position where neither one of them has any chance of making it. Now Zac, is about to lose the little girl, But then Zac never was smart enough to take care of her. Poor old Zac is just waking up from a drug induced lifestyle and finding it takes a brain to raise a child.
Chad A hero??? No fucking way. He screwed everyone who trusted him. He is at this moment trying to steal and sell a few t-shirts that he took from me.
The Car Forest is a gift to anyone who wants to play in it. I gave it birth and it will grow. But Chad?? Well he has a lot to learn and the lessons are just starting. Ya, don’t steal, forge checks, or in general screw people to make your way in life. You don’t use the people close to you to do the work you need to do. It sort of comes down to the old saying,”YOU don’t work,YOU don’t eat.” And if you steal and forge checks you wind up painting jail house walls.
This message brought to you by The Last Church and good old Mark.
Mark, I’ve known you long enough to see that you are delusional. Your skewed view of reality seems to be what you actually believe and I simply won’t try to defend myself from the views of a mentally sick person. I’ll leave your 2 comments here, but let it be known, you’re not welcome on my website from now on. Go back to your cave.
Would love to see you burn Suburbans instead, and refit the buses for people to use. Seems ridiculous to burn the buses when creative people could live and travel in them, taking Art to places that get so little of it otherwise… creative destruction is good; destroying that which could enable creation to thrive and spread seems ill-conceived.
Karen, we don’t bury or burn any vehicle that is otherwise usable. You think we’d burn something as valuable as a working bus?
Artists have been known to believe that their art (or their ego) justifies acts of far greater abhorrence than killing a bus or two. Glad to hear your buses are safe from harm.
UPDATE: turns out, according to the word on the street, today, I AM the hero of Goldfield (half of GF anyway).
No one in Goldfield thinks Chad is anything but an asshole. Of course Chad may like to think a broken contract makes him a hero. But People here don’t like to be called liars and a small town doesn’t condone Fuckups for long. They drop you like a hot rock and use your ass for a football to send you rolling out of town. In a big city one can hide but in a small town you are always naked.
Publicity -Car Forest & Goldfield
Las Vegas Review Journal, One’s a photo slideshow, then the Video (Funny. Sums up the relations in our lil’ town)
http://www.lvrj.com/multimedia/End-of-the-Wold-Party-in-Goldfield-Nevada-167266905.html
http://www.lvrj.com/news/goldfield-days-bed-bath-and-beyond-166678196.html
Las Vegas City Life (Press in Vegas)
http://lasvegascitylife.com/blog/culture-alert/theres-end-world-party-goldfield-weekend.html
Puhrump Valley Times ( Local(ish) Blurb About Goldfield Days)
http://pvtimes.com/community/festivities-beyond-goldfield-daysevents-schedule-and-land-auction/
Nicholas Rattigan’s blog (funny, personal story from a journalism student)
http://nrattiganrsj.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-international-car-forest-of-the-last-curch/
Vincent Cascio’s Black Hawk Virtual Media (REALLY Sumthin!)
http://fusion.realtourvision.com/22362
Geolocation (where? exactly?)
http://www.geolocation.ws/v/I/5171769186170308753-5204821167339542818/car-forest-of-the-last-church-is-in/en
Slurve Online Magazine (my article)
http://slurvemag.com/magazine/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=835:the-international-car-forest-of-the-last-church&catid=44:fine-art&Itemid=92
Photographer Ron Pinkerton’s Flickr (in the lightning and at NIGHT! WOW!)
Reno News & Review (A quick announcement for our party last August)
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/state-of-the-arts/content?oid=7085286
Nevada Matters RADIO Interview about Goldfield and the Car Forest with Sorg
https://fishbowler.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/this-time-i-get-interviewed-worldwide/
Sorg’s Art Exhibition at Reno’s Truckee Meadows Community College (Comin’ up soon)
http://www.tmcc.edu/artgalleries/2013/spring/
These are all fictional characters, right Mr. Fishbowler?
um.. yeah…………? hee hee
I think Sorg, you realize you’re so damn good, you’re better than Sorg himself. Tough break, kiddo. There’s a reason why the eccentric keep to themselves and the talented actually produce something. I raise my glass to you; here’s to a career over before it began, an ego before it achieved, all with the fine notion of alienating yourself rather than being truly interesting or actually infamous.
mm kay, well that’s intersting words you’re using but not entirely clear on intention here. Um, thnx?
Dude. Wuttup. I’m back. After investing some lovely lovely time in my wife. Now she’s happy. I’m happy. I’ve got the warm fuzzies like a tickle me Elmo with a blown brain. So anyway aside the point.
So I am back. Not for conversation or closeness. I am not looking for that kind of intimacy. BUT I am here to ask some simple questions. I am doing humanity a philanthropic favor.
So if you get rid of all these people? Chad. Does your life get better? Or do the same things seem to happen in repeating cycles with different people?
You got rid of drunk bitches from your life. Kick em to the curb! YEAH MAN! But is there still drama around you? Is it more, or is it less or the same?
All of these things go back to one element. I meet with people every week. Sometimes every day. I hear stories of these grand natures. Stories that make YOUR drama here with this dude seem Mickey Mouse. I hear stories of people losing their kids, going on the street, getting shot, shooting at cops, losing everything they have. Every single one of them has been in jails, institutions, homeless, or on the brink of homelessness. Most are decent people who, at one point or another in their life, been accused of hustling.
There is only way out. One way. No other way out of this. Mark blamed you. You blamed him. But the real way, the one true way out. Is blame the drink. Before the drink can be blamed. you hit your low point. The lowest point you are willing to take. If you feel life is out of control. Becoming unmanageable. the drink is the…. issue.
If you don’t have a problem simply try cutting back or drinking less on your own. If and when bottom hits. If it does. I got some amazing men. With amazing stories.I will have them call you. They’d be best buddies. We’ve all been here before dude. I know a guy who actually was a hustler, (not just being accused of it) a dealer, in jail for a decade, and even went to a building to BLOW up cops when they took his kid away from him (he was homeless in a park). He lost the hoe by smacking her across the room. He was shooting up. One day he found something greater outside of himself. And quit drinking. But not on his own. He required the support of a huge social institution and other people who had the exact same shit, to support. He has been happily married for 19 years now and has two beautiful well adjusted daughters. Artists, too!
So if things get bad, or even worse. Only you decide where the “bottom” is. When you’re ready. Dudes will give you a call. Is this your bottom? Let me know.
If not. You’ll do well. Cutting back on your own and see if your life remains drama free, from here on out, if the drink is not the real problem.
Hey Mark can you please notify me when he gets out? Like ASAP. Because the first things these guys do is get out and head to a bar. My buddies want to get to him before he gets out. As for you. Who knows. Any one who turned around or did you harm. If they recover, they will be calling you with apologies one day. Sooner than you might think. Thanks dude.
Holy shit the dude is going to be sober, alone with himself. his thoughts. Emotions. And reality will catch up. And all the worms are going to start eating his brain, especially after 60 days. That’s when it REALLY hits.
Dude. I’m a distant fan. Man I read this stuff because it’s engaging and interesting. That car forest was cool. I mean fucking cool! Is it gone or still up?
He humiliated man for sport. Anyway. Where is Sorg’s stable of men? Kidding. Stable of artists. I should say!
So just curious. You say he is in there 60 days? Or he in jail for a year? What will happen to the car forest now?
Sorg. You there? Or hit bottom.
I would like to extend a thank you to Rippie for his past generosity in bringing me in to make this project happen, but he’s not in the mindset to accept that.
JD, you ever hear the story about the scorpion and the frog? Those are animals I tell the story with, anyway..
Well Scorpion chooses to fatally sting Frog after he carries Scorpion across the river. Frog says “Scorpion! How could you do that to me after I helped you across the river!??”
Scorpion replies “I TOLD you I was a scorpion Asshole!”
Stinger meet katana!
just so you know, goodness prevailed and the authorities agreed that I’m not the thief in question here.
Life is peachy. I’ll read all this crap later when I have a minute. My next show tomorrow night at 8 will be the “jailhouse episode” hahahahaaaaaa
K, JD, thanx for your interest and sharing of your wisdom but you’re reading text hear by someone emotionally involved with causing my demise. Suffice it to say you don’t know what’s going on here. I do truly appreciate your interest and your comments and I understand you’re not being judgmental but trying to be helpful. Thank you.
No, everything’s actually better than ever.
Ya’ know JD.. you deserve answers if you wanna’ ask. Please do man. Hit me @ bigfishbowler@gmail.com and I’d love to fill in the blanks for you. It’s been a very interesting week. Wanna’ hear about it?
“Some empty bar, ya’ve fallen so far
from what ya thought life would be.
With each drink you’re takin’
darlin’ you’re breakin’,
so why not jis break down with me..
If yer hittin’ the bottom in a bar room,
girl, stay while I sink like a stone..
and I’ll be yer rock, rock bottom
so ya’ won’t hit rock bottom alone.
“I’ll Be Your Rock”
– Hellbond Glory
(Reno band, my friends)
I had to listen and transcribe the words to get ’em just right. LOVE that fuckin’ song. It’s sad poetic country. Leroy Virgil and Freddie Fingers are geniuses. Thnx for spurring that song JD, no, I’ve seen rock bottom and I’m not even in the zip code.
shit.. I mean Johnny Fingers. I bet him $20 bux one time that this Stones song we were listenin’ to in a bar had banjo in it. He was right but he refused to collect. I DID, however, get to buy him a shot of Jamison.
A big hug and a fist punch across the shoulder. SLUG! What the fuck are you serenading me for dude? Too many days in the cell? Ha ha if I could, I’d send you massive cash to get you a big LAY down there. No I’m saving up my ca$h for another big hit instead.
If that’s your porn dude.. Jizzing to scorpions stinging frogs. Whatever. Or poison drinks.
Did you know scorpions die once they sting? Bees too. Watch that stinger. It’s the end of the organism.
I’m straight. Thanks for reminding me. Good old days! last time I had man action was my cell inmate. Ahhh he was 5’11, muscular, and hundreds of deadly weapons. Ninja moves. I like em round.. and big! More weight more gravity means it plunges in harder. No pencil necks for me. Never was into those.
I was just doing a philanthropic duty. You’re not at bottom so my work is done here. Ha ha yeah man cool song.glory. Hey, you got the quote wrong dude! Your scorpion story. Got to go. early AM tomorrow to get concrete laid: (Building future in law quarters (this one is a chamber jubilee). I can’t stand my wife’s insane sisters Ha ha ha Mua ha ha)…
between scorpion stings, torn flesh, lion bites. Bleeding on all sides. retreat. All things Sorg. retreat
It did not have banjo in it.
He ended up collecting his shot in Amendment 21. Musta’ been 3 years ago.
Well, in a year I’ve gotten us a bit of attention. I have to inform you that Mark Rippie continues to try posting his delusional comments on my blog but he’s being blocked from that. There’s so much I could share with you about that man, but the bad mouthing would lead nowhere.
Instead, I’ll share with you this list I’ve recently collected of publicity for the Car Forest and Goldfield. Yeah, I’ve been kinda’ busy.
Publicity -Car Forest & Goldfield
Las Vegas Review Journal, One’s a photo slideshow, then the Video (Funny. Sums up the relations in our lil’ town)
http://www.lvrj.com/multimedia/End-of-the-Wold-Party-in-Goldfield-Nevada-167266905.html
http://www.lvrj.com/news/goldfield-days-bed-bath-and-beyond-166678196.html
Las Vegas City Life (Press in Vegas)
http://lasvegascitylife.com/blog/culture-alert/theres-end-world-party-goldfield-weekend.html
Puhrump Valley Times ( Local(ish) Blurb About Goldfield Days)
http://pvtimes.com/community/festivities-beyond-goldfield-daysevents-schedule-and-land-auction/
Nicholas Rattigan’s blog (funny, personal story from a journalism student)
http://nrattiganrsj.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-international-car-forest-of-the-last-curch/
Vincent Cascio’s Black Hawk Virtual Media (REALLY Sumthin!)
http://fusion.realtourvision.com/22362
Geolocation (where? exactly?)
http://www.geolocation.ws/v/I/5171769186170308753-5204821167339542818/car-forest-of-the-last-church-is-in/en
Slurve Online Magazine (my article)
http://slurvemag.com/magazine/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=835:the-international-car-forest-of-the-last-church&catid=44:fine-art&Itemid=92
Photographer Ron Pinkerton’s Flickr (in the lightning and at NIGHT! WOW!)
Reno News & Review (A quick announcement for our party last August)
http://www.newsreview.com/reno/state-of-the-arts/content?oid=7085286
Nevada Matters RADIO Interview about Goldfield and the Car Forest with Sorg
https://fishbowler.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/this-time-i-get-interviewed-worldwide/
Sorg’s Art Exhibition at Reno’s Truckee Meadows Community College (Comin’ up soon)
http://www.tmcc.edu/artgalleries/2013/spring/